Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ August 2013 http://www.usfca.edu/pacificrim/perspectives/ Downloaded from Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ August 2013 Asia Pacific Perspectives EDITORIAL BOARD Editor John K. Nelson Managing Editor Dayna Barnes Editorial Board Ezra Vogel, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University Thomas Gold, Professor, UC Berkeley Margaret Kuo, Assistant Professor, CSU Long Beach Rachel Rinaldo, Assistant Professor, University of Virginia John Nelson, Professor, University of San Francisco Shalendra Sharma, Professor, University of San Francisco University of San Francisco http://www.usfca.edu/pacificrim/perspectives/ Center for the Pacific Rim Melissa Dale, Executive Director Downloaded from Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ August 2013 Asia Pacific Perspectives Volume 11, Number 1 • August 2013 ARTICLES Editors’ Introduction >>.............................John Nelson and Dayna Barnes 4 Languages of Human Rights in Timor-Leste >>....................................................David Webster 5 Two Rights Paths: East Asia’s Emerging Regional Human Rights Framework >>..................................................Silvia Croydon 22 Assertive or Reassuring Chinese Presence in Troubled Waters? The Decision-Making Process of Beijing’s South China Sea Policy >>..........................................Mike Chia-Yu Huang 36 Towards a Modern Context for the Traditional Whaling Songs of Japan http://www.usfca.edu/pacificrim/perspectives/ >>.............................................Felicity Greenland 52 “Think Piece” . When the Tide Goes out: Citizen Participation in Japan after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster >>..................................................Pablo Figueroa 74 Downloaded from © 2013 University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ August 2013 Editor’s Introduction We are pleased to introduce the summer 2013 issue of Asia Pacific Perspectives. This issue brings together the voices of scholars from Canada, Australia, Britain, and Japan as it considers the interaction between the international and the local in East Asia today. The first two articles examine the issue of human rights from different perspec- tives. David Webster looks at the struggle for independence in Timor-Leste in terms of local agency. He argues that a regional actor successfully appealed to the international community for support by using human rights norms as a leverage issue. Silvia Croydon analyzes the development of a concerted regional ap- proach to the question of human rights in East and Southeast Asia. She finds that there are many challenges to the creation of a regional approach, but that prog- ress is being made. Looking at the recent tension surrounding maritime disputes in East Asia, Mike Chia-Yu Huang asks what drives China’s increasingly “assertive” foreign policy. He argues that the number of actors in decision-making has led to inconsistent policy, and that this causes tension between domestic factions, neighboring states, and global powers. Felicity Greenland also addresses the conflict between local experiences and international norms, using research on traditional folk songs. She describes a rich and established cultural history of whaling in Japan, a legacy put under pressure by current global environmental concerns. Finally, with this issue, Asia Pacific Perspectives introduces a new type of article, one we are calling “Think Piece.” This new series will allow contributors to re- spond to current events and big ideas in the Asia-Pacific region in a shorter, more informal style that integrates personal opinion informed by scholarship and the http://www.usfca.edu/pacificrim/perspectives/ author’s expertise. We hope you will find value in our first “Think Piece” by Pablo Figueroa on the Fukushima nuclear-reactor situation in Japan. Dayna Barnes, Managing Editor John Nelson, Editor Downloaded from Editors’ Introduction u 4 Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ August 2013 Towards a Modern Context for the Traditional Whaling Songs of Japan Felicity Greenland, Bukkyo University ABSTRACT This paper analyzes historical Japanese folk songs to provide cultural perspectives on contemporary Japanese attitudes towards whaling. It reveals the deep connec- tion between whaling and Japanese community identity, and helps to explain the resistance to and rejection of international anti-whaling campaigns, which fail to recognize this significant facet of Japanese culture. This research uses the songs to investigate traditional whaling and its later counterparts, and discusses the role that folk songs might serve in the current whaling debate. The intangible cul- tural heritage of Japanese whaling includes a body of traditional, local folk songs known as kujira uta whose lyrics outline Edo period whaling practices in terms of geography, personnel, techniques and species, and provide insight into cultural attitudes. Content analysis of fifty songs, and comparison with contextual sources, contributes to an understanding of the songs as local affirmations of a wider social, folkloric and spiritual consensus set in an international arena. KEY WORDS: Japan, whaling, Edo period, folk-song, heritage, community Introduction Although it is not the only whaling nation, Japan is particularly infamous for its whaling. Tokyo’s consistent rejection of the anti-whaling norm draws condem- nation from other governments and execration from the overseas public and transnational NGOs. At the same time, the international media are quick to fall back upon stereotypes, while the internet facilitates their entrenchment. In short, Japan’s persistence in whaling badly affects its international image. http://www.usfca.edu/pacificrim/perspectives/ While international lobbies seek to focus on issues of environment – sustain- ability of whale populations, and ethics of the treatment of intelligent mammals – the Japanese reaction takes different form. First, at the national scale, many Japa- nese believe that anti-whaling protest attacks their country’s identity. They see kujira (whale) as part of their traditional fish-based diet and, so, part of Japan’s ‘unique culinary culture’. By extension, anti-whaling arguments are felt to vilify Downloaded from Japan’s traditions and relationship with nature. Many Japanese view protests against Japanese whaling as cultural imperialism or racism.1 At its most extreme, the anti-whaling movement nourishes this contention, for example by harking back to samurai and World War II, and Hirata has described how such ‘shaming campaigns’ may serve only to strengthen the resolve of the Japanese public and policy makers.2 Second, at a much smaller scale but more acute, the whaling is- sue directly affects individuals, families and communities in small coastal towns and villages for whom livelihood and identity are not matters of rhetoric. Their customary trials and tribulations are certainly not allayed by the whaling ban, but neither are they eased by the image brought to bear on them by the contro- versy as they try to cultivate alternative industries such as tourism.3 It is not difficult to find whale meat on a restaurant menu or in a super- market in Japan. It is available in cans, as dried blubber, and as vacuum packed ‘whale-bacon,’ and offered raw or cooked in restaurants of all classes. This is the Traditional Whaling Songs of Japan / Greenland u 52 Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ August 2013 most widely cited evidence of ‘traditional whale culture’ in Japan, but what other evidence is there and what does this evidence amount to? At March 2011 there were at least ten specialist whaling-related museum collections in Japan – three of those were destroyed or damaged by the tsunami of the Great East Japan Earthquake, or Tōhoku Disaster. In addition to relics and equipment from the industry itself, tangible artifacts include archaeological finds, books, scrolls, screens, wood block prints, pottery, textiles and religious paraphernalia, that document, commemorate or celebrate whales and whaling in a heritage setting. Recently, cute designs on pocket-handkerchiefs, mobile phone straps and so forth, enable modern consumers to put their money where their mouth is and demonstrate their fond regard for whales. Antique or contempo- rary, each object, offers insight into Japan’s relationship with the whale, past and present. However, there is also an intangible heritage. The current existence of at least thirty-nine annual whaling festivals at twenty Japanese towns indicates that non- material cultural products of whaling, in the form of songs, dances, music and rituals, are also valued. A number of these towns were also affected by the tsu- nami and, in the recovery effort, the continuation of festivals was an early focus of energies in order to boost community spirit. Insofar as the survival of tangible artifacts is contingent on nature or zeitgeist, the intangible is less ephemeral. In this sense, traditional folk songs, with neither physical substance nor material value, may be regarded as one of the more enduring cultural products of whal- ing. Furthermore, there may be information conveyed by the study of folk songs that it is not possible to deduce from other cultural products. This paper explores the information on historical whaling contained in Japanese folk songs from the Edo period. In doing so it draws on socio-musical heritage to illuminate the present day. Can these songs offer any alternatives to http://www.usfca.edu/pacificrim/perspectives/ the current manner in which ordinary people, both within and outside